


Lucifer's journal: Addendum

by vanishing_apples



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slice of Life, a repository for conversations I wish they could've had masquerading as a fic, canon compliant background lucisan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29606031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishing_apples/pseuds/vanishing_apples
Summary: Freed from his past duties, his only responsibility now is to remain as he waits, remain as Sandalphon remembers him: a bearer of their shared memories, real ones. He can’t afford to lose them to idle delusions now, not when they are all that he is.
Relationships: Lucifer/Lucilius (Granblue Fantasy)
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

_There never was an ocean._

His eyes meet the blinding blue of not water but sky. 

_What was I doing?_

Rough wood under fingertips, latticed shadow over forearms, turned soil, cool to the touch, bunching around ankles. 

_Soil. Not the chilled tongues of seafoam._

Arduously slowly, Lucifer’s awareness reanchors itself: the weight of the rake in his hands, wide brimmed straw hat on his head, slanted sunbeams warming his shoulder. Gardening. Turning this plot. Snagged on a stubborn clot of dirt. Tried to dislodge it from the rake. Zoned out halfway through. Right. 

He silently chastises himself for daydreaming, again. It’s becoming more and more often as of late, lasping inward and back. The waters of memories are a different breed of comfort to this eternal paradise. After all, it is welcomed - its cool, murky depths a refuge from the perpetual summer. Even now, he can still hear it, he wishes so fervently to still hear it: Sandalphon’s laughter on the oceanic breeze, chasing the foam crested tide. Except...

_There never was an ocean._

There was no ocean in their shaded garden, surprisingly vast as it was. It was but a construct of his covetous heart. Not a memory, but a wish. Yesterday’s... or was it the day’s before? Last week’s…? That, too, had been one: He and Sandalphon soaring the skies not strapped to the weight of their own wings, their fingers intertwined, on the windswept deck of an airship. Not fragments of the past, but fantasies for the future - unseen and will never be seen.

Dropping the rake, Lucifer rubs at his eyes as if to scrub away the images. Over time they have grown more vivid, too akin to recollections for comfort. 

No, there is a future. It may take years, decades, millennia, however long in the mortal realm, but he will see him again in this timeless place. Freed from his past duties, his only responsibility now is to remain as he waits, remain as Sandalphon remembers him: a bearer of their shared memories, _real ones_. He can’t afford to lose them to idle delusions now, not when they are all that he is. 

Calling an early day on gardening, Lucifer returns to his small lodge where carpets and furniture are perpetually free from dust. The pantry is always stocked with produce yet somehow, through the improbable logic of this idyllic realm, still has room for whatever he brings in from the garden. Jars of coffee beans, sorted and labeled with care, line a small polished rosewood shelf. A pair of porcelain cups at opposite ends of a window side table, warmed by afternoon sun. 

He brews a pot and fills both to the brim, inhaling lungfuls of the coffee’s fragrant vapour. Sandalphon’s endeared smile awaits still behind his eyelids, this time with the sort of definition and warmth that only true memory can afford. 

_”Lucifer.”_

This… this is, was, real.

\---

Constant as this realm may seem, Lucifer has found that with enough resolve, it does marginally bend to his will. 

The sea. They went… He wished… that they had gone to the sea. Eyes lidded, he tries willing the flat, grassy meadow into the object of his heart’s desire. Slowly, the whispers of windswept grass become wet murmurs. Firm soil shifts under his feet, crowds around his naked toes, turning granular texture. 

Lifting his gaze once more, a bud of warmth unfurls in his chest as he admires the water - so much water - rolls like an infinite stretch of indigo silk far into the distance, into the sky, vignetted by an unnatural fog where his mind has not bothered to fill in the blanks. For now, this is sufficient. 

Lucifer spends the rest of the day doing his best to… enjoy himself? At least, to emulate the ways of mortals he has seen in such a setting: tracing the retreating tide’s shadow on the beach with his own footprints, carving odd, aimless shapes into the sand, sculpting even more dubious forms, letting water coat his skin. Trying to recall another’s laughter on the salty breeze. 

He pulls himself out of the sea, overcome by a sudden craving for coffee. The grassy plain is back upon his return.

Momentary as his alterations may be, they are welcomed breaks from the monotonous scenery. There does seem to be a limit to his influence, however, things he cannot change. Lucifer suspects, knows, really, by some oddly ingrained intuition, that these facets of the realm answer to Sandalphon rather than himself. This place is born of their shared memories, after all. There is paradoxical comfort in such things that are inert to his ministrations, just by virtue of their connection to Sandalphon as he intuits. He likes to think they offer minuscule glimpses into Sandalphon’s state of being, how he is living life: The perennial coffee tree’s blooming indicates success, perhaps? Or celebration of some fruitful endeavour. The painted chairs and table of their past coffee breaks withstand his attempts to alter their superficial designs as they do the elements, mirroring Sandalphon’s resolution. These limitations notwithstanding, Lucifer finds that he can will a surprising range of landscapes and things into fleeting existence, so long as they are drawn from his lived memories.

The gentle rises and dips of pine forested hills. Sandalphon’s intent ruby eyes over a handful of pine needles dancing in a bubbling pot. Arid, craggy terrains which end abruptly in gaping faults. Sandalphon’s trembling fists shortly before diving for his first flight. The lively lime green of saplings rising out of the winter’s last snow. Sandalphon’s laughter laced remark on how he can’t tell where the snow ends and Lucifer’s wings begin. 

It’s a lot harder to parse memories from stillborn dreams when he has wilfully surrounded himself in fantasy. These landscapes do not last for any longer, but over time become easier to manifest. Absently, during one afternoon spent with his feet dipped in the phantasmic water of a cool mountain lake, Lucifer wonders if it is possible to create illusions of living beings.

He can’t bear to further entertain the idea. Even if they were illusions, even if they were confined to this gilded cage and could not come to anyone else’s knowledge but his own, the possibility alone feels perverse. A shadow in _his_ likeness, most of all - a testament to Lucifer’s resignation to delusion over their past and future reality - would be an absolute act of betrayal. 

Such thought invites an inkling of fear. With the realm now so finely attuned to his desires, what if it were to respond to this one? This needless sentimentality. This seed of selfishness which he would rather be forever hounded by solitude than allow to germinate. He begins to fervently wish away, not loneliness itself, but the very inclination to mitigate loneliness. He will make do with this paradise. Lucifer is certain, convinces himself, that he does not need a (semblance of a) companion. 

Until he finds _him_ , his old friend, under a rarity of a raincloud one sunny afternoon. 

\---

They were silent the whole way home, Lucifer fearful that speaking would make this all dissipate, or worse, real. All illusions vanish within a one hour timeframe. The distance from that particular overcast field to his lodge requires approximately twenty minutes of leisurely walking pace. He was leisurely enough, surely, neither the cold knot in his stomach nor the tension in his shoulders should have affected his speed. Forty minutes left, just enough for… What, exactly? He’s been so fixated on the concept of companionship, Lucifer has never spared any thought on what he and company would do once he has them. And more importantly… 

Why him? Why in this form? Is it because it was with this appearance he last imprinted upon his memory? Does it mean he also recalls their bitter farewell? How does one even begin speaking to an estranged old friend, ignoring the shambles of their past relationship?

Lucilius, or his shadow of Lucifer’s making anyway, surveys the interior with inquisitorial eyes set in an otherwise unreadable face, the clicks of his heels defiantly puncturing the lodge’s once seemingly everlasting quietude. It is absolutely surreal and more than a little unnerving, to see his face attached to a build not his own, strutting around on heels which boost him to a height that surpasses Lucifer’s. 

Be it from growing weary of what little space there is to scrutinise or of Lucifer’s obvious gawking, Lucilius plops down on one of the two windowside chairs. It is then - the second he is about to prop his legs up on the table, only to find two cups of coffee gone cold occupying it - that Lucifer sees the first flash of emotion across his frigid features: annoyance. 

_”My friend, it is not advisable to sit in such a manner… The chair has four legs for a purpose. Resting on but two is a precarious, unstable position. You will fall.”_

_“Doesn’t matter. I find this slight level of instability to have a pacifying effect which helps me concentrate. After all, increasing efficiency is more of a prioriTY-!!”_

“Haven’t seen you make that face in a while.” - Lucilius addresses Lucifer without looking, balancing on the hind legs of his chair with knees pressed against the table’s edge. A familiar smirk plays on his bloodless lips. - “Am I that much of an intrusion?”

“Ah… No. Not at all.” - Lucifer stammers, gaze falling on the table, the lace along the tablecloth’s edge. The floor. The swaying hind legs of Lucilius’ chair. - “There is nothing to intrude upon.”

“Hm.” 

Uneasy silence crouches in the air. They simply sit and stand, umoving. 

“Well, I never did teach you how to play a hospitable host. You could at least sit down with me.”

“Oh… My apologies.” 

Having been jolted into motion, Lucifer walks to the other chair, awkwardly wedging one long leg between it and the table as if he has never taken a seat in his life. 

He’s fumbling. He was deprived of human contact for so long he’s fumbling with the social ball and dropping it all over himself. But this is better, much better than addressing the elephant in the room. Better than being on his own. They can talk over anything else or nothing at all. 

Lucilius at least seems amused by his struggles. Rather than ashamed, Lucifer feels a little more like himself than he has in what has felt like centuries. 

“Actually, would you like some refreshments?” - It’s never too late to learn the ways of a good host, he muses.

Lucilius eyes the cold day-old coffee cups.

“Can’t I just drink that?”

“I fear these might no longer be fit for consumption. Let me brew you a fresh cup. This will not take long at all.”

It indeed does not take long, but in his growing excitement, Lucifer finds the kettle could not finish boiling quickly enough. He’s driven by an urgency to please his guest - illusory or not - still one that he has not had the pleasure to entertain in ages. 

Minutes later, Lucifer comes back with two steaming cups of coffee (he didn’t intend to make one for himself, but making two cups at a time with one going unconsumed seems to be an unbreakable habit). The two front legs of Lucilius’ chair finally meets the ground as he leans forward in curiosity.

“I forgot to ask if you would like cream or sugar with this.”

Lucilius loved sweet things, he remembers. But an eyebrow arches up on his pale forehead at the inquiry.

“Does consumption of this beverage necessitate them?”

“Not really. I usually drink it as is myself.”

“Then I, too, shall drink it as is.”

Before Lucifer can voice further warnings, Lucilius has taken an ill-advisedly large gulp. His face promptly wrinkles in disgust; the emotive excess of which knocks a strangled chuckle out of Lucifer. Lucilius’ eyes widen for a second before his grimace returns with heightened intensity.

“I am sorry. I failed to caution… you probably should not have done that.”

“Has the tongue I gave you already failed in its functioning? You call this a refreshment?”

“It is an acquired taste, my friend.” _Friend._ When was the last time he addressed anyone using that word?

Lucilius purses his lips. 

“Well, it tastes like garbage.”

_”You should finish the rest of your meal, my friend. Fibres and vitamins are the cornerstones of a balanced, nourishing diet.”_

_“Well, the rest of it tastes like garbage.”_

Though still restrained, laughter bubbles from Lucifer’s throat, sending tremors throughout his body. The sight seems to cause Lucilius’ expression to shift from one of distaste into puzzlement.

“Perhaps drinking so much of that repulsive liquid has made you strange.” - He huffs. - “Our first proper conversation and I can hardly make heads or tails of you anymore.”

“Perhaps.” - Lucifer wipes a tear from his lashes. - “Coffee is known to contain stimulants, which makes it a popular beverage among skydwellers.”

“Oh? So its appeal lies not in taste but in effect. Elaborate on these stimulants.”

It comes naturally as breathing: going into lengthy, explanatory soliloquies under Lucilius’ sharp, unabashedly curious gaze. He’s done this before, possibly hundreds of times, over hundreds of research reports. This feels different, however. Something to do with holding another’s undivided attention not because business necessitates it, even more so after prolonged isolation. He feels invigorated, affirmed, even. The frozen hands of some unseen clock seem to have started ticking anew.

Lucilius continues to feed him silent attention, eyes slightly narrowed in that familiar way indicative of the cogs in his head turning.

“All these years and you never managed to make this… coffee… palatable on its own. Instead you train yourself to acclimate to its astringency.”

“I never had to train myself, in all honesty.”

“Right. You are unencumbered by the frivolity of preferences. Your tastebuds might as well be dead.”

“And I have you to thank for that, my friend.” (A snort from Lucilius). “But in all seriousness, I believe altering the taste so radically would fundamentally change the nature of coffee itself.”

“And what’s the problem with that?”

Lucifer’s gaze lowers, both hands folding almost protectively around his still warm cup.

“Over the years I have learnt that… Sometimes, no, most of the time… In aiming to cultivate functional coexistence, it is better to meet halfway, to allow things and people their own unique inclinations, at least to some extent. One-sidedly imposing your goals on them would, as I say, at best turn them into something that is no longer themselves.”

“You haven’t answered the question: What’s the problem with that?”

“At worst, you destroy them.”

Without his own awareness, Lucifer’s gaze has drifted to a point far outside the window, towards where the perennial coffee tree stands. A point of safety, a harbour from the discomfort beginning to crawl under his skin.

“I still can’t see how that would be a problem. No point in existing for things that cannot be mobilised for your purposes. Might as well destroy them completely and repurpose their scraps for something else that can.”

“In that respect, I would have to disagree.” 

Lucilius makes a small noise. A short, quiet hum with an upward lilt. He’s intrigued. He always shows intrigue whenever Lucifer expresses what he perceives as a possibly stimulating counterpoint. Such heightened attention should make Lucifer happier. Instead, he feels a little sick. This exchange has long steered away from coffee.

“...I believe there is more value to preserving an existence than forcing it to bend to our whims.”

He’s certain Lucilius finds that unsatisfactory, but Lucifer can no longer bring himself to please him. Tightness grips his chest, growing steadily into a weight that settles in his stomach with each ensuing tick of silence. Lucilius most likely knows, in spite of his persistent show of indifference all those years ago, the reason - person - behind coffee’s significance to Lucifer. His once eager attentiveness now feels more akin to cold scrutiny. It makes Lucifer dread tearing his eyes away from the window, fearful of turning back to meet that gaze, being forced to acknowledge the other, uninitiated conversation hanging over them like a Damocles’ sword. 

But when he turns back, Lucilius is no longer there. Like the ocean’s mirage retreating into the heat of the midday sun. But his coffee cup remains, half drunk and stained at the rim.


	2. Chapter 2

He keeps coming back, periodically. So often, in fact, Lucifer begins to suspect the nature of this supposed mirage. But then his heart has not been quite the same since their first encounter. The desire for company no longer contends with lying dormant; stirred by that event, it rattles impatiently in his chest. Perhaps the realm’s dynamism is only responding in kind. 

He finds the second Lucilius quite literally in the middle of nowhere: a flat, treeless plain with not a single geographical landmark to speak of. Just… sitting, on the grass, his legs crossed and his back arched. Terrible posture, really. Clearly indicative of someone who knows not what to do with themselves in the face of excess idleness. The curve of his spine straightens upon Lucifer’s first step towards him, as if he could feel him from the mere vibration of the ground. By all accounts, it should be dread or a surge of instinct to retreat that floods his limbs, but Lucifer feels no such thing. Instead, it is an odd, tingling warmth. Instead, he’s beckoning the apparition to stand, to follow him back, again. Wordlessly. 

This Lucilius doesn’t initiate dialogue. Lucifer’s tongue is held still by the hefty weight of “their” last conversation. Between them, there is only coffee: one cup black and the other loaded with cream and sugar cubes (packed with energy and little regard for flavour, just as he used to, still seems to, like it), their fragrant vapour curling in the air. Coffee, and silence. 

Silence that neither feels a particular urgency to fill. Both seem to revel in the comfort of such quietude. Simple coexistence. Lucilius’ expression is unreadable as always, but Lucifer feels neither a need to linger on it for long, nor to seek verbal confirmation of whatever it is they’re sharing. He already _knows_.

_”My friend? I have finished archiving sections XLI to CDL. Are there other tasks that require my attention in this wing?”_

_“No. But stay for a while.”_

_“Alright.”_

He has never scrutinised such instances in the past. No benefit in starting now.

The third Lucilius watches him till soil. The fourth one picks at the weeds crowding in on his saplings. The fifth one grumbles about the sun. Lucifer makes him a straw hat - the second one he has ever made in his life, or death - and Lucilius watches his clumsy fingers weave with excessive vigilance. Or perhaps curiosity, or not.

Lucifer faintly remembers what curiosity looked like on Lucilius: the little crease of his forehead, the pressed line of his lips - the lower one folding ever so slightly over the upper in a minuscule pout, the downcast eyes whose gaze seems to fall right through the ground, into the depths of the unknown and beyond. He remembers how curiosity gradually flattened into apathy on those same features, centuries, millennia ago. So long ago. He doesn’t remember well enough to tell if _this_ is it.

Lucilius-five puts on the straw hat, says nothing for a few seconds, then complains that it irritates his scalp. Lucilius tends to do that - always finding a way to be discontented with something, but hardly ever anything that implies genuine inadequacy on Lucifer’s part. Lucifer promises to sew a fabric lining into the hat to solve the issue, and he does, fully expecting Lucilius to be gone before he gets anywhere close to done. 

The sixth Lucilius helps him chop wood. There’s something comical about the way he wields an axe, his teetering on heels and haphazard one-handed swinging. The seventh Lucilius watches him water plants, then complains about the inefficiency of his method. 

“I have an eternity, my friend.”

“You could still do it faster.” 

Laughter, though subdued still, once again bubbles out of Lucifer’s chest. A sound he still can’t fully believe himself capable of making. There’s an unfamiliar look on Lucilius’ face: an odd mix of bemusement and amusement.

“And, pray tell, what shall I do with all my spare plant-watering time?”

Lucilius-eight rummages through his stationery. Lucifer never writes much beyond logging plant growth anymore (and even then, keeping track of time in a timeless place is a discouraging task). His quill nibs are dry, and the fine film of dust over his blank parchments is kicked into the air at the slightest disturbance, causing Lucilius to wrinkle his nose. But once everything is back in working order, he begins drafting with practiced motion.

“What are you drafting, my friend?” - Lucifer peers over Lucilius’ shoulder. 

“Automation to replace your inefficient methods.” - Lucilius’ quill nib glides without pause.

Lucifer’s mouth sags in a small frown.

“I have told you there is no need. I am performing adequately with a simple watering can. Although…” 

“Hm?”

“Are you sure about this valve mechanism?”

_Got you._ Lucilius could barely conceal his smirk.

“What makes you say that?” 

“I have concerns over the water pressure this will induce. May I suggest an alternative?”

_”Interesting proposition. Though I’m certain the actual analysis will yield results corresponding to my initial expectations.”_

_“I can see how you have come to arrive at such certainty. However, do consider my counter hypothesis. Your initial expectations were formed under a set of assumptions which, with the additional information that has recently come to our knowledge, requires adjustment.”_

_“Nice try, but I don’t see how one additional theoretically irrelevant control variable could significantly alter the predicted outcome.”_

_“I would argue that it could.”_

_“Guess there is only one thing to do.”_

_“Understood, I will make the preparations.”_

_“Good. Let us experiment.”_

The spray gun bursts with an air-shattering pop. Lucifer’s reflexes manage to secure the flailing leather hose, but not to actually stop it from spewing water skyward. For some seconds, they just stand there dumbstruck, drenched from head to toe by the artificial shower of their own making.

“...I guess we should have proceeded with my alternative.” - Lucifer says finally, matter-of-factly.

Lucilius’ laughter somehow comes as more shocking than the exploding spray gun. Lucifer can’t fully believe he is capable of making such a sound, either.


End file.
